Friday, February 05, 2010

[js]During one of my Costco runs, I saw that they were offering a discount on crab meat. Normally, I wouldn't even give this a second look, not used to buying and eating any sort of already-processed, already-shelled crustacean meat. It must be the cheapskate in me that was lured by the two-buck discount that decided to give it a try.

left: pasteurized crab meat!right: tortillas fried one by one by TS

[js]We had some corn tortillas in the freezer and I thought we could finally try a tostada. I've seen tostadas on menus before but have never ordered them, always being tempted by tacos instead.

[js]Now for the verdict, the good and the not-so-good. Unfortunately, nothing beats meat from a live-from-the-tank-before-you-eat-it-crab and there is a big, big qualitative difference between that and this processed and pasteurized crab meat.

We made our crab meat better by squeezing lime juice all over it. That seemed to restore the meat to some semblance of live-before-you-eat-it-crab freshness.

[js]The crab tostada, on the whole, was very good. What's not to love? Crispy corn tortilla, sweet-briny-salty crab meat, creamy avocado slices, and a piquant pico de gallo with juicy tomato chunks, crunchy cabbage slivers. . . the whole tostada is definitely more than the sum of its parts.

[ts]We'll just need to use actual fresh crab meat next time. But, knowing us and our lack of industry ("What, we need to cook crab then pick out all the flesh?!!"), we'll just choose a different filling next time. =)

7 comments:

Think I have seen that crab meat in Costco before but I never dare to buy....and I don't know why. Maybe I have nothing in mind I wanted to cook with those crab meat though I will buy fresh crabs and consume their meat/flesh :O

this brand of crab meat is what we used for making crab/asparagus soup or some of the other crab soups such as bun rieu..but your creation looks great..the tortas here in LA tends to get really soggy quick and yours look still crispy!